Tag: yucata

A deck building game with a bag of cubes instead that you pull from to move you car in a race. This sounded like a perfect mix of one of my favorite mechanisms (deck building) with some unique theme like racing. The game is not bad, but after playing it 5-6 times i failed to find much to like in it. First of all it is too much random and “swingy”. You can crawl a few spaces for a few turns and then jump half a track ahead. Yes, you have to manage your pull of cubes and improve the selection, but this just doesn’t work. Hard to explain. There is too much trash in your bag from the start and you get even more of it during the race. There are some cubes that help you cull bad cubes, but those cubes on their own will clutter you selection. Also this is hard to foresee which regular racing cubes you will need the most, because every track twist needs different ones and you can pull completely useless ones from the bag. The game provides a lot of variability with different setups (every cube color has a few cards with different abilities, which can be used in a game). But that creates another problem of constantly checking what a particular cube does in a particular game. Yes, you will probably memorize it after a few turns, but this memory won’t stay with you, because next time you will have to memorize different abilities. This gets especially frustrating when playing online and doing a few moves per day (i know, this is not fair, as this game is not designed to be played this way, but that’s how i play the most). So, i admit this is a unique and clever design with a bag building mechanism and interesting racing theme, but only 7/10 for me.

Yucata implementation: as with many new games it uses 2.0 framework and it works fine. The only problem is the cards that i have mentioned above, they are too small and you have to click on them to zoom and be able to read the ability. I guess nothing can be done about this. 9/10

Carcassonne is one of the first board games i’ve tried. And one of the most favourite. I also own a few expansions, though i probably like it the most without them. Because it is so simple and in the same time so charming. South Seas tries to shake it up by adding contracts, when you have to collect resources by completing objects and then spend those resources to fulfil orders and get points. It’s an interesting twist, but i like classic Carcassonne more, when i get points after completing objects and some points for incomplete objects at the end of the game. Also it seemed that in this variant there are a lot of tiles with roads, therefor it was harder to complete islands. And just in general it was a pain to find a spot for a tile when there were so many tiles with incomplete roads around. Of course, there is a simplified fishing (fields) counting, when you don’t have to complete them. But again, i liked how you could swing the score with the farms in the end. In general, while playing this variant, i tend to think that i should be playing the original. But this is not a bad game. A solid 7/10.

Yucata implementation: it is using framework 2, so it looks like many other games, though it could have brighter colors as it is hard to see your meeples sometimes, especially when the map grows. 8/10.

This game is available on Yucata for a long time, but it didn’t draw my attention after reading its rules. Until recently i’ve heard someone on internet praising it. So i’ve decided to give it a try. I have to admit that its mechanism is indeed unique (deck building 3 or more decks). But the gameplay is not exciting. It’s just boring and too prolonged. Although i’ve only played it on Yucata with two players and some of my opponents were living on Yucata and doing 10 or more turns per day, sessions of this game were still lasting for too long. First, its uniqueness (3 or more deck building and playing) just irritates. You constantly have to try to remember which card is where and with what card it has to play, you have to check all your decks to remember what you were trying to do with each. Of course, playing it live, on a sufficiently large table would allow to spread cards to be able to see them all. On Yucata you only see actions of two first cards in a deck and then you have to click on every other card, because it is hard to tell from the name itself. Of course, on Yucata this is like that to save the screen space, although it can be improved as you don’t really care for your opponent. Then the way of adding the cards to the decks. You deck is growing and you see the cards you need less and less often. There are ways to trim the decks, but then we face another annoying aspect of this game. Many cards are worth points at the end of the game. So if you remove them, you lose points. Yes, this is a search for balance between good cards, sacrificing these good cards to get more resources and complete better contracts. But it doesn’t feel rewarding. It’s just stale and very slow pacing. Feels more like a very painful and slow crawling. Only 6/10.

Yucata implementation: although the screen space is limited, but i think it is possible to spread the cards better, especially when you don’t care for your opponnents moves. Also the moves history window is always positioned in the middle for some reason and when playing on tablet the last move is hidden behind game management buttons. Although, as i’ve said it is not so important to see what you opponent did. 8/10.

Occasionally i try out some new game. Live with my friends or colleagues or at one of the sites i’ve mentioned (Yucata, Boardgamearena). One time i just want something new. The other time i decide to try a game which i heard about on the Dice Tower channel or somewhere else.

I will describe in short my impressions about games which i tried out in the recent 2-3 months.

Nations: The Dice Game. I haven’t played the Nations game. I saw good ratings of this version from the Dice Tower team. And when this game appeared on Yucata site i hurried up to try it. And.. it seemed too primitive and short to me. Although its shortness has to be its merit, but i want a bit more from a game than 4+ rolls of dice (yeah yeah, there is an option to re-roll if you doesn’t like the results). Also it seemed that selection of new cards, which you could acquire to acquire more dice, was limited and not interesting. You get the same thing, just in a bigger amount, so you could buy more of the same thing (dice). This game lacks diversity. I’m still trying to play it (and win 🙂 ) to see something i didn’t see yet. But i rate it 6 out of 10 so far.

Seasons. The game i wanted to try for a long time. It looks beautiful. Chunky, nice dice with symbols-resources, pretty art on the cards. The game is interesting, but it didn’t impress me that much. I’ve mostly played it with 2 players (on the Boardgamearena site), because playing it with more players creates too much chaos and it is hard to plan or strategize. A lot depends on dice in this game and on who is picking the needed resources first. The thing that by the end of a game some players were able to pull such combinations, so it completely out weighed the results in their favor, also contributed to a bit of weaker rating of this game. It looks like i didn’t like the game, because i lost so many times 🙂 Partially true. But i didn’t like that there could be such leaps of points in the game. However the game is really peculiar, interesting and unique. I really liked the start of the game, when players in turn are picking cards (“drafting”) and put them aside for the first, second and third turn. The game is demanding to think through your strategy very well from a very first minute. My rating 7/10.

Almost 5 years ago i’ve watched a review of a board game on the Internet. It seemed interesting, so i started looking for more videos. I’ve also found a few shops selling board games. One week later i’ve bought very simple, little card game (“Saboteur”). Tried it with my father and brother. Then i brought it to office and showed to my colleagues. And so it began 🙂 I’ve started buying more games, looking on the Internet about which games are considered the best, about newly released. Once per week after the working hours we were playing with my colleagues one or two games. Although, a few years later it all calmed down a bit (work, families, kids). But then a few new colleagues came to our unit and we recalled our tradition, so once in a while we organize gaming evenings. Also trying to interest co-workers from other units.

Even when our gaming group was broken up for some time, i haven’t lost interest in the modern board games industry. From the very beginning i liked Tom Vasel’s channel about games on the Youtube page – The Dice Tower. I try to watch every his video (game reviews, top’s, game plays, videos from games conferences). Also i have quickly found a site, which is the main portal for all board game fans – www.boardgamegeek.com. You can find information about a particular game, discuss it in the forums with other gamers from all over the world, rate games in the catalog. I always try to rate on this page every new game i’ve played, add to the list of games in my profile if i purchase new one (a link into my collection (without the expansions)). Read More